ROC United Activist Tells White Protestors That Injustice Is Rooted In White Supremacy

Yesterday, ROC United (Restaurant Opportunity Center United) protestors were out in Boston demanding “one fair wage,” but the protest took an interesting turn when one of their radical activists commandeered the megaphone…

Guest speaker Ernesto Arroyo claimed that the roots of the problem with the minimum wage are tied to “white supremacy” and “patriarchy.”

We, most people want and believe that people should be paid a fair wage. Yes? We are not in like some small fringe, like five percent of people, that think people should get paid what they deserve. And by the way, more. Right?

So what I am looking at is how do we connect this fight to what the roots of the problem are, that we all, right? Often. Maybe not all, but many, can come to a conclusion that we are in a system that is rooted in white supremacy, we are in a system rooted in patriarchy, and we are in a system that is rooted in greed, capitalist greed that wants more where the bottom dollar and the red line needs to increase. Where every year they look to make more and that more doesn’t just appear from thin air. That more comes off of the backs of people who are sacrificing every day and trying to survive, serving, imagine serviving people food, then going to have to get your food stamps to go get food to feed yourself.

I don’t think, I really don’t believe that we are in a place… Now there is a thing I want to address. I was out in Standing Rock. I am heading out to Flint next week. When we fight, we win in the sense of two ways. One of the.. Sometimes we don’t do it right away, y’all. So I want to talk to you all about what that means to me. That means making a dedication to saying that social justice is not a hobby, it is not something I am doing at 10 o’clock on Thursday… It is a way of life. It is an acceptance and an understanding that none of us are free until all of us are free. None of us are in a position to use their power over others unless we let them. And there needs to be a demand. So that is what I mean when people say when we fight we win. The sense that we are saying ‘we are fighting,’ we are winning in that sense. The minute we decided enough is enough, we chose to say we will win. Then there is a strategy. Then there is action. Then there is next steps that we need to take.